A world's disappearing.
Little street,
You were too narrow,
Too much in the shade already.
You had only one dog,
One lone child.
You hid your biggest mirror,
Your undressed lovers.
Someone carted them off
In an open truck.
They were still naked, travelling
On their sofa
Over a darkening plain,
Some unknown Kansas or Nebraska
With a storm brewing.
The woman opening a red umbrella
In the truck. The boy
And the dog running after them,
As if after a rooster
With its head chopped of.

A Book Full of Pictures

Mio padre studiava teologia per posta

ed era giunto il momento degli esami.

Mia madre sferruzzava. Io sedevo in silenzio con un libro

pieno di figure. Cadde la notte.

Le mani mi diventavano fredde sfiorando i volti

di re e regine morti.

C'era un impermeabile nero

al piano di sopra

che pendeva dal soffitto.

Ma cosa ci faceva là?

Mia madre faceva rapida croci all' uncinetto

Erano nere

come l' interno della mia testa proprio in quel momento

Le pagine che giravo risuonavano come ali

" L' anima è un rondine", disse una volta.

Nel mio libro pieno di figure

infuriava una battaglia: lance e spade

creavano una specie di foresta gelida

col mio cuore trafitto e sanguinante tra i rami.

Father studied theology through the mailAnd this was exam time.
Mother knitted. I sat quietly with a book
Full of pictures. Night fell.
My hands grew cold touching the faces
Of dead kings and queens.
There was a black raincoat
in the upstairs bedroom
Swaying from the ceiling,
But what was it doing there?
Mother's long needles made quick crosses.
They were black
Like the inside of my head just then.
The pages I turned sounded like wings.
"The soul is a bird," he once said.
In my book full of pictures
A battle raged: lances and swords
Made a kind of wintry forest
With my hearth spiked and bleeding in its branches.